SEO for webshops in particular, or in website in general

Hi there,

Since my internship company is a communication agency with lots of online shop projects running, I thought it would be interesting to focus my thesis on SEO.

But I still have my doubts whether I should focus my thesis on search engine optimization for webshops, or websites in general.

My question:
Is there a difference between SEO for regular websites and online shops?

Thanks in advance.

Websites and webshops... What is the difference?

Websites normally have some informative or interesting content. That type of content - if done well - can attract the links and visitor engagement that can result in rankings.

Webshops normally are simply a presentation of goods without content of particular interest or educational value. They have a hard time attracting links if the site is strictly a webshop.

The webshop the company currently is working on is strictly a webshop. It's actually an exclusive webshop, which means that visitors should register first to gain access. They asked me to write a thesis on that, but do you know to what extent seo is effective on this webshop? Is SEO on webshops effective at all (to write a thesis for)?

If visitors must register to gain access then the pages from that webshop are probably not indexed by the search engine - and that could be an enormous loss of free traffic.

Also, requiring visitors to register will severely cut the number of sales because who wants to register to see another site? Pain in the ***. Remove all barriers to access if you want maximum sales.

Thesis? Such as for an advanced degree in business? I used to be a professor and a thesis normally required original research. If this site is operating you could have the registration removed and track the lift in traffic and sales that will result. I don't know the expectations of your department but such a study would be less that many departments require. You could add additional testing on conversion rates of various search terms, A/B testing of product pages and more to make the study more substantive.

EGOL is right!

I will add that, if you have a webstore, add some extra content to get links. If you sell baseballs, have some articles on how to throw them, store them..etc. This will give your webstore a little more link bait and also give your customers some value in coming to your store.

Thanks for the tips.
The problem is that the registration is part of the concept. They want to stamp it as an exclusive shop where members only gain access to the exclusive samples they offer. All interesting content can be found behind this login screen. Every sample sale lasts 2 days, then it closes. Just to give you some more information.

My first intention was to conduct literature research about seo, analyze this website, and provide recommendations in order to get a higher ranking in search engines. Well, a recommendation will probably be that they have to put all extra relevant content before the login screen to be better recognized by search engines, but I think they won't be satisfied with that.

Then I thought it would be interesting to focus on websites in general, but there is plenty of literature to be found about this topic. So that's why I'm kind of stock right now.

as Egol said, there is NO difference. tire shop or veterinarian, green utility or mens clothing shop...they're ALL the same...and all can be serp'd into success...required membership or not...

ALL are SEO applicable and all can be raised serp wise...just some channels take longer and more patience....

:-)

Jim

For SEO you will need content that is not 'locked' so the SE can see it.
If you do not want too much of that concentrate on quality links.

Also if your focus is on exclusivity... SEO may not be the right marketing strategy.
If not... locking your content behind a login may be an incorrect strategy.

I understand the point.
I think it's better to combine two strategies; SEO and Google AdWords. I think an AdWords campaign would be more effective. As for the SEO, I recommend to focus more on social networking, linking strategies etc.

By the way, I'm thinking of conducting interviews with experts in the field. Is somebody interested in sharing their knowledge?=)

Michel, a mixed approach might be helpful. Have *some* content available to anybody who visits the site...and so that the search engines have something to index. Let it be a hint, a tease, whatever, but it should still be useful in some way. Then put the really good stuff behind the registration.

This way, if someone benefits from the little bit of content they get, they might be enticed to go ahead and register.

Just a thought; as the regular posters here will tell you, I'm not an SEO (and am now fighting the temptation to add "I just play one on the Internet").